Every day I grow to love the scriptures more and more. I learn so much every single time I read them. I have a strong desire to know more about the scriptures and to share these teachings with others. I have gratitude towards Joseph Smith and I am so happy that he had the desire to know which church was true.
The message of the restoration is so powerful. I never realized this before my mission and had never just sat down and read it before. Every time I read it I feel the spirit so strongly testifying to me that this is true. I just can't believe I never had read it intently before this time in my life. It is a comfort and a testament that this church IS true and that Joseph Smith truly was a prophet and that through him the church was restored to the earth, and the Book of Mormon was translated for us in these latter days. As I continue to learn more about the Plan of Salvation I understand the great importance of following the commandments to the best of our abilities. What a great blessing it is to be able to access the power of the atonement whenever it is needed. Every time I take the Sacrament I think about Christ's sacrifice and I can't even imagine the pain he endured. He loved his father in heaven and every single person that has ever or ever will be born to such a great extent that he took ALL of our sins upon him and was also crucified on the cross. Even while he was on the cross he was asking our Heavenly Father to forgive them for they knew not what they were doing. He and our Heavenly Father have given us so much that we know about and even more that we can't even imagine. As I was pondering on this I thought about what I could do to give back to them. As my companion and I recite our purpose every day, I am reminded of some ways we can. My purpose as a missionary is: "To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. The restored gospel is the only way by which we can find eternal happiness. My calling gives me authority, keeping my covenants gives me power. The fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon in evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I help people live the gospel by inviting them to make and keep commitments. I show my love for the Lord and gratitude for his atonement by bringing souls unto him. I am successful when I am obedient, live righteously, and do my best in helping others live the gospel." By helping other to come unto Christ and bringing souls unto him we are giving back and showing our love and gratitude for Him. By loving and serving His children we are being Christlike and doing as we are asked to. By following the commandments we are setting ourselves on the straight path to the Celestial Kingdom if we live righteously, are obedient, and help other live the gospel. We do this as we are faithful members of the church, read our scriptures, pray, keep the Sabbath Day holy, and help and serve our fellow children of God. I know we will continually be blessed as we do these things and we will make our Father in heaven extremely happy as well. I love and miss everyone so much! Love, Sister Breana Stewart
0 Comments
This week was amazing! We had a lot of success. Many great lessons and we have been having more opportunities to get to know the people and plan better because we are on foot. I am loving it. It is very hot outside and we are saving all of our change that we find in the streets so that we can both get water bottles.
I got Aunt Manda's package one Tuesday!:) It was awesome! Please tell her thank you X100000000 because we are loving everything in it! I love her so much! It is still the rainy season here and rains really hard, like waterfall status, for 5 minutes and then stops. It does that randomly. We love it. We have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday! We are so excited! Roger is excited as well and is 100% ready. I will send loads of pictures next week since I don't have a lot of time this week Email me pictures of everything that is going on! I want to see all of your smiling faces! I love getting pictures of everyone back home. This Tuesday was an epic day! At lunch after District/Zone meeting Elder Savard and Elder Nixon didn't think we could eat a whole pizza and a half, just me and Sister Robinson. They said if we did she would get her favorite drink and I would get a carton of milk. Boy did we show them :) So that night at youth activity they brought my milk. They bet me after we finished the pizza that I couldn't chuck the milk. It was a half Gallon!!! I sure tried. I chugged half of it and it did not sit well. Needless to say, the pizza didn't stay in my stomach. Then Elder Savard said he could chug it and not be sick. He tried....and failed miserably. Same outcome as me haha. Sorry this email is so short. Busy, busy, busy with serving the Lord. I promise I will Email everyone next week!:) We will make time. Love and miss you all. Sister Breana Stewart LAST WEEKS UPDATE:
Crazy week! This week has gone good. I am so excited for you all that aunt Amanda and Jordan are coming and that Jacob is returning home as well. I got one of your letters and loved it! That was the coolest. I wasn’t expecting it the day that I got it and was having a stressful day with appointments falling through and what not, but we decided to go out and find someone. When we passed the mailbox and it was in there it gave me the bounce to my step that I needed on that specific day. The power went out at our house for the millionth time so we couldn't bake a cake for a member in our branch named Patrick and he just turned 20 today, so we just bought one. He is preparing for a mission but is having a hard time with paperwork. It is a sad thing here. A lot of people don't have their birth records here so it is hard for them to get jobs or travel among other things. Hopefully all will work out though! We take him teaching with us as much as we can, as do the elders. I know that has been a blessing for him as well. WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE WITH ONE OF OUR INVESTIGATORS!!!!!!!!! Roger is on the path to baptism. Get excited!! We are so excited for him. The new elders came on Wednesday and one on Thursday. Elder Nixon and Elder Jones are both from Utah I believe. FIGURES. Elder Savard is from Canada and speaks French. We split our area this week with the new elders coming and our number plummeted. We have some work cut out for us in these upcoming weeks. It will be great. Spanish is coming along very well. We might start an English class at the church sometime in the near future because I contacted a couple of Spanish speakers this week who were interested in that if we were to start it up. I told my companion what they said and she was stoked and told me to get their info. We have several investigators that speak Spanish that would be interested in that as well so hopefully that ends up coming together. As a zone we get together occasionally for language study and I had the opportunity to teach the missionaries that are learning Spanish the basics. It was cool. It helped me see that I know more than I think I do. However, I was sick for a few days and that happened to be one of them. Hopefully the next time we get together will be better because I won't be sick and will be able to concentrate better on what they need to learn and be able to listen to the spirit more as well. We had a baptism on Saturday! The elder's investigator Ayana was baptized and it was amazing. The spirit was so strong and we had the opportunity to have our investigator attend that as well. Roger had an amazing experience attending. Ayana will be an amazing member and a great blessing to this branch. She is so excited and knows without a doubt that this is the true church. We don't have a car anymore! We gave our car to the elders since we live closer to the church and we have been walking like crazy people these last few days. We had to show a couple of the elders around their new area since it used to be ours. By the end of that we all looked like we jumped into a pool. No joke. You think I'm kidding but I am being 100 percent honest. Soaked to the bone. Needless to say, the sun is hot. By the end of that day I had, again not joking, 6 water bottles in my bag that I drank. I need to invest in a real water bottle. Maybe that will be on my Christmas list? ;) I have never drunk more water in my life. If anyone was wondering, I don't look like a ghost anymore! I am already getting tan!! :) I have an awesome tan line where my watch goes and I'm starting to get a pretty good farmer's tan as well as a tan line where my sandals are. Whoop whoop. I'll get back during winter and will be super tan compared to you all. Love everyone so much Sister Breana Stewart THIS WEEKS UPDATE: General Conference was much needed this week. The talks that were given were truly inspired for many around the world. Having the opportunity to listen to the Prophet and his apostles speak is truly a blessing. I cannot wait to read over all the talks when I get the chance. Guess what else I can't wait to do? PONDERIZE! As soon as that talk came on it reminded me of Dad and how he is always creating new words. The power had been going out like crazy. When it goes out during personal study, wow does it get hot. It turns into a sauna in our apartment. I sorta broke my handheld fan..:/ My Mini Scriptures are amazing and so light! It is way easier to walk around all day without the extra weight added on in my bag. Or Bayg as Elder Phol would say. (he is Canadian) After the first Saturday session we went with a couple of the Elders and ate Chinese food! We were going to go to a French place to eat but it was closed. Chinese is close to French food right? :) Although this was a hard week, it was great as well. No matter the trials we go through, if we lean on the Lord for help we will be lifted up and strengthened so that we may continue to do His work. I love and miss everyone back home. Shout out to my Brother who just got off his mission! Woop, Congrats! Love, Sister Breana Stewart |